


Phantasm

by Rhaella



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-09
Updated: 2008-11-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 15:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhaella/pseuds/Rhaella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is defined by her madness, and he – by her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phantasm

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://springkink.livejournal.com/profile)[**springkink**](http://springkink.livejournal.com/). _Prompt: BtVS - Spike/Dru - bloodplay - amusement park_

The Ferris wheel stands out sharply against the night sky, shining and shimmering like a beacon of molten silver. It’s not lit up like some of the more modern versions, and reminds him, oddly enough, of Paris at the turn of the century. The whole park, glittering under the starlight, is picturesque, practically a scene out of an old movie. A wonderland that the living never have the chance to experience.

Still, he only has eyes for her.

Drusilla is standing beneath the Ferris wheel, her eyes wide as she watches the daft thing spin around – even now, when it’s not actually moving at all. She seemed so tiny next to the ride it’s ridiculous, but hell… it’s like the world forgets to breathe when she’s around.

“So many people,” Drusilla murmurs, her voice so quiet and yet so clear. “Look at all the people, Spike.”

“I see them, love,” Spike replies easily, even though they’re the only two beings left in the park. So many years, and still he can’t bring himself to disbelieve a word that Drusilla says.

“Around and around,” she observes with quiet wonder, never tearing her eyes away from the Ferris wheel. “Round and round, and they never go _anywhere_.”

Spike nods even though she isn’t looking at him, and responds, “Well, they’re human _beings_. That’s what they _do_.” He vividly remembers his own short, all too pointless human existence, before Drusilla saved him.

“How odd,” she whispers, and then suddenly begins to giggle quietly, as if there’s some secret she’s trying to hold onto. “But it’s a game, isn’t it!” she finally exclaims. “A wonderful, _delightful_ game… and do you know what the rules are, Spike?”

“Haven’t a clue,” he replies as he pulls a cigarette out of his pocket.

“When you go higher… until you _can’t_ , then you win,” Drusilla states with a vague sort of conviction, her hand drifting slowly upwards, “but if then you drop, _you never die_.”

Spike stares for a moment, entranced by the way she’s watching that damn wheel as if it had the answer to every question in the world. “And isn’t that the same thing?” he finally asks.

Drusilla spins around to look at him, and her face is bright with a dreamy, euphoric kind of awareness, before it falls back into sudden confusion. “They’re so loud,” she laments, a hint of incomprehension in her voice, as if she can’t understand how this could be (it’s a sentiment with which Spike sympathizes). “Why are they…” she breaks off, a frown settling across her features as she presses her hands to her ears. “Come here, Spike.”

It’s not quite a plea and it’s not quite in order, and Spike finds himself suddenly behind Drusilla, one hand resting against her waist – almost before he realizes that he has even moved. “I’m here, love,” he murmurs, and feels her relax slightly against him.

“So loud,” she repeats herself. “All talking, and _laughing_ , and what are they laughing at, Spike? What do they have to _laugh_ at?”

The words are close to angry, and tinted with a hint of desperation he still can’t quite interpret. “Dru, pet… I wouldn’t know,” he replies, only the slightest echo of laughter in his own voice, as he settles his gaze upon the empty seats.

She moves away from him suddenly, gracefully, and then hovers undecidedly beside the bottom of the wheel. Almost hesitantly she reaches out, pressing her fingers against slightly rusted metal and then brushing them across her lips. “I can taste them, Spike,” she whispers excitedly. Her laughter is mad, and yet he has never heard a saner sound. “So _delicious_.”

“That’s probably just the security guard,” Spike replies easily, and Drusilla turns around and looks at him with those eyes that he suspects see everything. Slowly she shakes her head, closing the distance between them until she’s near enough to press her fingers against his lips.

“See?” she asks, her eyes shining, but all he can taste is rust and then, as he bites down almost gently, _Drusilla_.

“Naughty boy,” she murmurs delightedly, but instead of pulling away, she moves closer. Her fingernails, sharp enough to _kill_ – and he’s seen her do it – graze against the side of his throat, opening up shallow wounds, and he finds himself wondering if bleeding nigh to death would feel at all like hunger. Drusilla’s lips are colder than ice when they brush against his skin, but her tongue is as warm as it has ever been.

It hurts a bit – doesn’t it always? – but the only thing about it that bothers Spike at all is that, even with Drusilla’s blood upon his tongue, he still cannot imagine the world as she sees it. As close as he is, Spike is still ultimately disconnected from her, stranded a reality away. The park is still empty, tragically so: not even a hint of Drusilla’s phantom people dance across the edges of his vision. He knows they’re not real, not like himself or even Drusilla, but that presumed gap between reality and fantasy has never meant all that much to Spike.

(He may be a vampire, but he was a poet first – searching out the hidden things in the world long before he finally became one.)

Drusilla is clinging to him, and he wonders if she even sees him, if he plays any role at all in her slanted vision of reality. In the end, he realizes that it doesn’t matter; he’ll never truly know. The best he can hope for is to stand by her side, to complement her madness and to define her beauty, her perfection.

It’s enough, he decides. It has to be.

“Spike, make them be quiet,” Drusilla murmurs to him, and he manoeuvres her against the side of the Ferris wheel.

“That, love, I can manage.”


End file.
